Marketing: The South Africa Marketing Landscape

I've been doing some work, looking at the South African marketing landscape, and it is interesting how the market tends to blow hot and cold at times. One year South Africa will win all the advertising categories and it seems to fall into a complaisant dip. But it is unfair to generalize the market, the companies that performed good the previous year were no longer making good strides the following year. Always when I quote the stats I get excited because they don't lie. 

In 2010, the two most recognized brands did not perform that well in 2011, further the top 2 companies that increased their market share in 2011 with radio, print media and television adverts, are not doing well in the last quarter of the financial year. And this is not the trend of the top 2 brands, it is a general trend that is evident. 69% of businesses who their gross income is R2 billion and over showing signs of slowing down their marketing presence in the last quarter of their financial year. A slightly bigger percentage of 75% of small businesses who's gross income is R5 million and R25 million a year, have decrease their marketing efforts at the end third quarter already. Does this mean marketing has seasons, and businesses slow down their marketing efforts in the first quarter of the year. 

Research took us even further, round about February and March, big retail companies are gearing up for Easters. The budget for the Easters is getting bigger every year, increasing by 9% every year according to the Financial publishers. And the smaller retail companies follow suit soon after, and their efforts if not creatively constructed, their efforts are almost huffed away by the 'Big Boys' of the industry. Smaller companies are constantly striving to keep their niche happy and most promise their customers lower prices. When the 'Big Boys' release their strategy, they do a total media evasion, hoping that they struck a desirable balance of distracting their audience and a powerful call-to-action campaign (CTA), from conventional ways of marketing to inbound marketing. Everybody is learning to market themselves in a fresh unique way, but nobody has been more creative than the top 23% small businesses. 

Most executives still believe that the only way to engage their audience is either through sales and a benefit of some sort at the right time. They wait until the rush, and this is when they fight to get the attention of their audience. By this time, those smaller but creative businesses were in touch with their customers during the 'so called quiet season' are now having to put a smaller budget during the 'rush season'. A big company like McDonalds understands the saying "Out of Sight, Out of Mind", the minute they stop advertising in the manner they've always been, their customers will look for other options, so they constantly need to keep their foot of the marketing pedal. 

In the past it used to be that the business with the biggest marketing budget gets the best marketing experts and the best creatives. But the South African marketing landscape has changed, today there are more platforms to reach your target market and you are able to publish your campaign in various ways. There are platforms like social media platform, webinar platform, and the most popular these days is exhibition platform where most small business are optimizing to ensure that they not only attract their niche, but their are able to qualify them before they even contact them. 

As a marketer, we are constantly on the look-out for new ways to save the customer money and send the message across effectively. And due to the increase in the platforms, it makes it easier to effectively reach your niche and give them material that is worth their money. So, has the South African marketing landscape changed, in a big way, those agencies who still prefer one platform over the other, are still stuck on their out-dated philosophies and principles and forgot what marketing was intended to do, serve their customer's customer.